Hollywood star and rights advocate George Clooney on Sunday joined emotional ceremonies in Yerevan marking the 101st anniversary of the World War I-era Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire.

US actor George Clooney poses with Ararat mountain in background, as he attends a ceremony at the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan on April 24, 2016. (AFP)

Hollywood star and rights advocate George Clooney on Sunday joined emotional ceremonies in Yerevan marking the 101st anniversary of the World War I-era Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire.

A staunch advocate of the massacre’s recognition as genocide, Clooney co-chairs the selection committee of the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity which was established on behalf of the survivors.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million people were killed during World War I as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart, a claim supported by many other countries.

Hollywood star and rights advocate George Clooney led thousands of Armenians on a march to a hilltop memorial in Yerevan to commemorate the 101st anniversary of the WW I-era Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire.
(AFP)

Turkey fiercely rejects the genocide label, arguing that 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife when Armenians rose up against their Ottoman rulers and sided with invading Russian troops.

During an award ceremony in Yerevan on Sunday evening, the Hollywood heavyweight named Marguerite Barankitse from Maison Shalom and REMA Hospital in Burundi as an inaugural recipient of the Aurora Prize.

Barankitse, a Tutsi who saved thousands of lives -- including 30,000 children -- and cared for orphans and refugees during the Burundi civil war, was given a $100,000 grant and will nominate organisations to receive a $1 million award.

US Actor George Clooney, right, presents the first Aurora Prize, an award recognizing an individual's work to advance humanitarian causes, to Marguerite Barankitse, left, during an awarding ceremony in Yerevan, Armenia.
(AP)

“Marguerite Barankitse serves as a reminder of the impact that one person can have even when encountering seemingly insurmountable persecution and injustice,” Clooney said during the award ceremony.

“We honour the million and a half lives that were lost 101 years ago. And we honour those lives by calling their tragedy by its true name. Genocide. The Armenian Genocide.”

The killing of more than 200 Armenian intellectuals on April 24, 1915 is regarded as the start of the massacre that is widely viewed by historians as genocide. But modern Turkey, the successor to the Ottoman Empire, vehemently rejects the charge. Clooney has been a prominent voice in favour of countries recognizing the killings as genocide, which the United States has not done.
(AP)

Accepting the award, Barankitse said: “When you have compassion, dignity and love, then nothing can scare you, nothing can stop you -- no one can stop love. Not armies, not hate, not persecution, not famine, nothing.”

On Sunday morning, Clooney and the French singer of Armenian origin Charles Aznavour joined President Serzh Sarkisian and thousands of Armenians to lay flowers at the eternal flame at the imposing memorial in Yerevan as requiem services for the victims were held in churches across the country.

The genocide “is a part of Armenia’s history, it’s also a part of the world’s history, it’s not the pain of one nation only,” the US actor and director said upon his arrival in the ex-Soviet nation’s capital.

“Today, we commemorate the sacred memory of the victims of the Armenian genocide,” Sarkisian said in a statement.

A picture taken in Yerevan at the Armenian Genocide Memorial shows flowers in a hand during a ceremony to commemorate the 101st anniversary of the World War I-era Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire. Hollywood star and rights advocate George Clooney led thousands of Armenians on a march to a hilltop memorial in Yerevan to commemorate the anniversary.
(AFP)

Turkey’s “policy of denial... has not changed, as has not changed its hostile stance toward everything that is Armenian.”